Tag Archives: Khalid Omar

There are camping lists, and then there are camping lists. This is one of those. There is the minimalistic school of thought which believes in grabbing just a shotgun and a wallet and heading off into the bush – but if like us, you get off the city to take a break and enjoy, than it’s nice to have all the essentials (and more!) along.

Keep this in mind – You must take everything you might possibly need from home – there is nothing (except oxygen) available on the way! Be prepared to change tires, dig your 4×4 out from a lot of mud, and other such goodies.

“The world’s greatest museum of shape and form” is how Italian mountaineer/author Fosco Maraini described Concordia in his book, Karakoram. Galen Rowell called it the “Throne of the Mountain Gods”. Come 2007, somehow or the other, 5 of us from Karachi ended up hiking to Concordia, and on to K2 base camp.

Our group has been approached by the Management of Hingol National Park to help them in organizing a free medical camp at Jhal Jhau for the villagers living along the Hingol River in the Northern Part of the Park. We are going for 4 days to Hingol, Baluchistan, March 14-17, 2008 and setting up a medical camp. Read on for the details.

Click here to see the complete picture gallery of the Goran Gatti trip. This trip involved hardcore 4wheeling, as we made our way to the highest mountain, Goran Gatti, which is deep inside Hingol – no vehicle has made it there before. We didn’t make it there either, but it was a lot of fun trying!

“ Like any long trip, we started planning this a long time ago. Some (Asad, me) had wanted to do a major hike for years, and Concordia was always at the top of the list of the many, many places to go hiking in Northern Pakistan. “The world’s greatest museum of shape and form” is how Italian mountaineer/author Fosco Maraini described Concordia in his book, Karakoram. Galen Rowell called it the “Throne of the Mountain Gods”. Come 2007, somehow or the other, 5 of us decided to finally go.

The pre-trip preparations involved a lot of research, finding hiking and cold weather equipment, and trying to get into shape for the long hike ahead. Our plan is detailed below, and hopefully anyone else looking for information on planning this hike on their own will find it helpful. The pictures of the hike are up over here, and an article about the actual trip will be up soon.

The story you are about to read, is a story of self-proclaimed adventure, misery, apathy, a mix of un-daunting and daunting courage and insaneness in the literal and/or emotional sense of the words. The story revolves around three people namely myself, Adeel aka ABC and Sufyan aka corky. Together these characters attempted to drive from Lahore to Gawadar and back in 4 days.

People looking to get sleeping bags and camping equipment in Karachi can now get Coleman Brand at MAKRO on very reasonable prices. Its located in SITE after you cross the Railway bridge on the way to Orangi from SITE DC office—also known as Habib Bank Chowrangi.

!/images/2006/fahad/fahad_stuck_1.jpg 160×120! Fahad wrote in from Islamabad: “My jeep got stuck in Rawal dam & it took three days day & night effort & finally with the help of Col.Ikram (Pak Army) by the help of chain cuppy we pulled it out of that slushy mud. The clutch plate had slipped, I restored it again & beauty is back on the road.” It was truly, deeply stuck, as the pictures below show:

There are a few Jeep workshops in Karachi who do world class restoration work. I had known that many of their jeeps from Karachi end up abroad, with one great example in the Smithsonian Museum in the World War II section, and another in the New York Museum of Arts. Recently I found out that there was even a documentary made by an American channel about the local jeep rebuilders:

Back in March Alex had contacted us – he was trying to get some information on Pakistan, and had stumbled across our website, offroadpakistan.com, where he left a post on our forums:“Hi. I was hoping that I could use the collective knowledge on this forum to offer our team any advice/suggestions/routes/must see & do’s for a visit through Pakistan?”

This is a question which has been long debated. There are those who swear by K&N filters, and many who swear at them. From ‘Autoblog:’:http://www.autoblog.com/entry/1234000600057664/

Fortunately, a Duramax owner tired of the lack of scientific evidence pursued a path of testing that eventually ended with a lab performing the ISO 5011 procedure on a number of replacement air filters.

Read the ‘full test results here’:http://home.usadatanet.net/%7Ejbplock/ISO5011/SPICER.htm. The gist of the tests is:

The K&N and UNI filters were far less efficient at trapping dust, and note that they lose their flow advantage after filtering about 180 grams of dust.

“ /> This book is number 1 on ‘Outside Magazines list of The 25 (Essential) Books for the Well-Read Explorer’:http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200301/200301_adventure_canon_1.html and National Geographic magazine named “Wind, Sand and Stars” the third best adventure book of all time. So it had to be good… and turned out to be jaw droppingly amazing. This is not just a book – it’s sheer poetry. See Outside magazine’s review below:

Interesting article on free wheel hubs. There are two opposing camps about free wheel hubs, and never the twain shall meet. After many years driving a Willy’s jeep with permenantly locked hubs, I’ve never had a single problem with the front axles, or with mileage, loss of power etc.

Good article on oils: ‘Fluid Selection’:http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3828/is_200311/ai_n9320844/print:

Today, the automotive service industry is faced with a daunting variety of fluids. One type certainly does not fit all applications. This article summarizes some of the most common fluids and the unique OEM specifications that have appeared over the last 10 to 15 years and that are in use today.

These are training materials used by Toyota. I’ve collected them from various places on internet. They are a very good introduction to EFI engines in general. Recommended reading for anyone planning to install an EFI engine, or just wanting to know more about how they work. To view them, you will need ‘Adobe Acrobat Reader’:http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html.